


Where the Heart

by Barkour



Category: Green Lantern: The Animated Series
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-19
Updated: 2012-08-19
Packaged: 2017-11-12 10:30:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/489879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aya is operating with an insufficient understanding of the word 'home.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler warning for the thirteenth episode, "Homecoming."

Oa is pristine, bright, very much like the Interceptor; there, the similarities cease. Where the Inceptor is small and known, Oa is vast and strange to her. For all the histories and maps the Guardians programmed within her, the reality of Oa is alien.

At the observation platform’s edge, Razer beside her, Aya considers the physical breadth of this, the planet of her inception.

“It is peculiar.”

Razer leans against the railing. His arms are loose, his shoulders wide. “What is?”

She turns her face to the sun. “I did not possess a mechanical body when I was created here on Oa. I existed only within the Interceptor. So it is like coming to a new planet for me.”

“Neither of us has a home now.”

She looks to Razer. She is aware, before she does so, that he is studying her, as he has done often of late. What shows in his face, she does not know, only that it is sufficient for Aya to feel cause to say, again,

“I assure you, I am well.”

Razer’s eyelids drop; he evades.

“Have the Guardians spoken with you yet?”

“Yes,” says Aya. “They had not yet decided what to do with me.”

The incline of his left shoulder increases. His eyeteeth, those most prominent fangs, flash as his lips peel back. A show of aggression, she notes; but she is unconcerned.

“They have no right to decide what to _do_ with you,” he snarls. A muscle in his cheek twitches. Again, he looks away from her. The line of his jaw is sharp. “Or with anyone else, for that matter.”

Aya sets her fingertips upon the railing. The metal is a reinforced alloy. Its composition and construction flit through her memory logs; she dismisses these.

“I agree,” Aya says. “I informed the Guardians that I will continue my assignment as navigational officer of the Interceptor.”

Razer exhales through his nose, a rough sound indicative of amusement. He smiles at her. “And how did your exalted Blue Ones take this?”

“They are eminently logical and will no doubt see reason.” Serenely, Aya returns Razer’s smile. “As I have operated successfully within that capacity for nine months and they possess no alternative task for me, I am certain that I will once more be placed with the Interceptor and her crew.”

His smile fades. Such expressions are always rare from Razer.

“And if she has no crew?” he asks lowly.

The prospect strikes. A viable option, nevertheless she had failed to consider it. No. She had deliberately ignored it.

Her sensors register a strong breeze, catalogue its westward origin, and then monitor it. Aya is very still. She does not grip the railing. Her fingers simply lie upon it.

“Hal has his duties,” says Razer. “As does Kilowog. What do you expect are the chances the all-knowing Guardians will see fit to assign both of them to the Interceptor, which,” he stresses, “they stole.”

She glances down, away, to Oa the city planet, the whole of it devoted to the responsibilities bestowed by the Guardians upon the Corps. To Hal, Earth is home. To Kilowog, home is a cherished memory. To Razer, home is a grave.

“There will be a crew,” says Aya, measuring the skyscrapers and causeways, the few sacred splashes of natural greenery of this small section of Oa. Such a dry and empty planet. “It will be my duty to serve alongside them.”

“So you’ll go along with whatever they say.”

Aya frowns. “I believe in their cause.”

“To pass judgment on everyone else?” He snorts. Razer’s shoulders are arched; his arms cross.

She tips her head, assessing. His heart rate has elevated by an average of five beats, and his temperature has risen a quarter degree. Sensors indicate his ring has an increased energy reading.

“You are upset,” says Aya. “Why?”

He will not look at her. “It’s unimportant.”

In such circumstances it is customary for two organic beings to share a point of physical contact, as a means of assurance. When Razer had appeared aboard the Interceptor’s bridge, he had held her to him, and she had known the not unfamiliar pressure of his hand on her back. Now, as Razer runs over with rage, supplementing and supplemented by his ring, Aya touches him. His arm is tense beneath her hand; it tenses further still. He glances at her over his armored shoulder. The set of his helmet casts shadow across his brow, and the weight of his gaze on her is such that she recalls the effort of lifting her eyes to meet her savior there on the bridge. She wonders if he will allow her the honor of repaying the favor.

“Incorrect,” Aya tells him. “It is important to me.”

Razer’s eyes flicker. He looks her face over, and she thinks: Does he see Alana? Alana, she thinks, or Aya? When she chose this form she did so for lack of options and a further lack of understanding of the complexity of relationships. As Razer looks down into Aya’s face she thinks, She did not know.

“What,” he says, “do you expect the chances are the Guardians will ever allow me aboard the Interceptor again?”

“There is peace between the Corps now.”

“A fantasy.”

“Not a fantasy,” says Aya. “A reality. The war is over. We stopped it before it could begin.”

He shakes his head. “They will not trust me.”

“You are a Red Lantern.”

“Obviously,” he says. “That’s why—”

Patiently, Aya says again, “You are a Red Lantern. As such, you are not beholden to the strictures of the Guardians on the Green Lantern Corps.”

His arm moves beneath her hand. He is looking at her again, unblinking. As if there is something within her he is trying to see. She wonders that there is still so much she does not know about Razer, so much he does not know about her. She wonders, more, that there is so much she does not yet know of herself.

The sun is behind him; it illuminates and shadows him. His armor is like fire; it engulfs.

“How did you find me?” she asks.

He is a cipher. She understands so little.

“It’s irrelevant,” he says.

“Do you believe it irrelevant when I am still functioning because of it?”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

He turns. She does not let him. A continued silence is unacceptable.

“Then what _do_ you mean?” she demands. “There is much I still have to learn. I wish to understand. How were you able to find me?”

She registers an infinitesimal shift in the breeze; this, at least, is truly irrelevant. The rushing of Razer’s heart, the minute trembling in his arm where her fingers touch him, the tightening of his jaw: this is important.

“How?” asks Aya again.

Razer closes his eyes. The black markings of his eyelids are like wings painted onto his face.

“Jordan went to the Star Sapphires.” Razer’s voice is rough. “He knew they could use his love for Carol Ferris to transport him to Earth.”

She understands.

Aya withdraws her hand. It is easy to do so; Razer does not fight her. His eyes open. They are very blue, like to but duller than the blue of her eyes. Remarkable, the aesthetic similarities two unrelated persons might share.

He says, “Aya.”

“I am thankful for your friendship,” she says.

At this, Razer flinches. His lip curls back, just so. “Aya—”

She presses on: “If my form discomforts you—” But this is her face now too, she thinks. She wishes she had understood before, but the regret is fleeting. It is small before this other, quiet certainty.

“You don’t understand,” says Razer.

“With apologies,” says Aya, “I believe I do. My facial resemblance to your deceased wife enabled the Star Sapphires to direct you to my location.”

He touches her. The pressure of his fingers on her cheek is minute. She knows it as a burst of static, a momentary sensory disruption. She is unsettled; she is off-keel; she is erratic and failing.

She says, “As—otherwise I would have likely ceased to exist in any meaningful way—”

“Aya,” says Razer. He will not look away from her. Something she cannot name lives in him. His face is taut with it; it pinches his mouth.

“I would have died,” she says.

He says, “I couldn’t let you.”

“I did not want to die,” she says.

His thumb strokes her cheek. The touch echoes through her, disturbing the intricate construction of her form. She is light made thick, energy made solid. She cannot bleed but she can break. She doesn’t.

“Aya,” he says again.

“You came for me,” she says, wondering.

And Razer says, “I came for you.”


End file.
